Career
Coached in Brisbane by Mabel Springfield, the chaperone for female athletes on the Australian 1928 Summer Olympics team, Lyons nearly missed the London games. Although she was one of 25 swimmers chosen for the team, due to post-war financial difficulties, she was forced to raise the money herself to pay her fare to the Olympics. This was only two months after changing from the traditional breaststroke technique to the butterfly stroke, which was at that stage permitted due to a loophole in the rules.
At the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki, Lyons finished last in her semi-final with a time more than six seconds outside her best, set in the London final four years earlier.
She retired after the games.